Proposal to Grant Citizenship to Egyptian Women’s Offspring

Published April 22nd, 2001 - 03:00 GMT

A conference has demanded that the offspring of an Egyptian mother married to a foreigner should be treated exactly the same as the children of an Egy

The Woman Legal and Constitutional Rights conference organized by the committee for woman development and renaissance demanded that the offspring of an Egyptian mother married to a foreigner should be treated exactly the same as the children of an Egyptian father and a foreign mother.

The participants have referred to the discrimination against the children of Egyptian women married to foreigners particularly in education opportunities.

This is in addition to the suffering of their mothers in their attempts to obtain citizenship for them and the way they are treated as if they were not Egyptians. The Egyptian law no. 26 for 1975 states that an Egyptian citizen is the person borne to an Egyptian father and that a person borne to an Egyptian mother and an unknown father is not considered an Egyptian national.

The Egyptian newspaper Al Gomhuriyyah cited Iman Beibars, head of woman development committee as saying that this situation violates the Constitution and the Islamic Sharia which guarantee equality between both sexes.

Meanwhile, Fawziyyah Abdul Sattar, rapporteur of the legislative committee at the Woman National Council proposed granting the Egyptian nationality to the children of the Egyptian mother and foreign father until the age of 21 after which he or she can keep or relinquish citizenship -- Albawaba.com